Posted on 06/12/2022 2:42:40 PM PDT by Mount Athos
A big part of the problem in defending this part of Donbas, Ostap believes, is that the people who have stayed behind — the people who haven’t fled — don’t really believe they are part of Ukraine. In his view, the civilians who remain are all separatist sympathizers. He says they help the Russians navigate backcountry roads that aren’t on the maps.
He asserts there have been instances of local collaborators getting caught providing information about Ukrainian troop movements or locations. Indeed, Slovyansk fell to Russian separatists in 2014: The retaking of the city by the Ukrainian military later that summer was the first major battle in Donbas.
“Almost everyone here is pro-Russian. But you can’t arrest people just for that,” Mace says. In any case, the police and the SBU —Ukraine’s internal security service — were doing what they could. “The SBU even arrested a couple of people in our brigade,” he says.
(...)
“I nearly beat to death one of the men in my unit,” he confides. “We were in trenches on the front lines. He was using his cellphone.”
“The Russians tracked his signal and located our position. He called his mom for 15 minutes, then his wife for 15 minutes … and then his girlfriend for almost two hours. They bombarded us all night. That’s why I beat him.”
“We lost six men on our first patrol,” he says. “Six out of 10. They were all my friends.”
He breaks down and begins to cry.
Sasha eventually admits that he has been given leave to go to a hospital to seek therapy, for what soldiers a century ago would have called shell shock and what we now call PTSD. He has been given 10 days to recover from his battlefield trauma and return to his unit.
Sasha doesn’t want to return to combat. All he can think about are the soldiers who were killed on his first patrol.
“Those six men were my friends, they were my brothers, and I love them very much,” he says. “I can’t just leave them behind. I will always carry them with me.”
“What is in my heart is that I never wish to see Donbas again in the future. Nothing you do there makes any difference.”
You understand the situation. Too bad so many don't. Or don't want to.
WW3 will start in the China seas areas.
Not in a shit hole place like The Ukraine.
Not in a shit hole place like The Ukraine.
LOL. Spoken like someone who has never visted the biggest squat toilet in the world: Neo Soviet Russia.
Who enabled them and Right Sector and Svoboda, and UON, and the Banderites, etc? The US/NATO/Soros. This war is a disgrace to the West.
You bet...As usual everyone is looking in the wrong direction.
“Raping from the earth”
Bless your heart. You apparently are so informed and Russiaphobic that you didn’t learn, or ignored, that the Ukrainian official who made up the rape stories admitted that she did it to get more weapons and $ from the West. The Ukrainian Rada did the honorable thing and condemned her for lying. Pity that you are repeating the rape hoax. Perhaps you can give us another chorus of the Ghost of Kiev hoax or the Snake Island hoax.
Yep, no argument there.
Our FBI has become the Ukrainian SBU. The closest thing to them both? The GESTAPO.
Yeah lots of them get no training or poor training - the high command sucks, lower officers issue orders then depart. Its not a good situation, but its the situation they have.
“And that is how Ukraine (plus USN P-8 and other SRI) swept the Russian Navy from the Black Sea.”
And that is why Ukraine was recently able to install S-400s on Snake Island.
{Whoops...that was Russia. Never mind.}
Nonsense!
All I hear about is how the Ukrainians are mopping up the floor with Russians.
It's all Laughs and Giggles until the western rails in Russia start rolling stock across the now fully-operational Crimean land bridge to Kherson...
I suspect that crz has more experience in the area of "squatting rough" than you'll ever hope to have, so that's not really an insult...
btt
LOL. Cheering Russian imperialism on a conservative American website? Hilarious. If Russia is able to build that railroad to Kherson it will only be because of billions in cash from Soros HQ in the EU. The EU funds Russia because they know it will never be anything but a kleptocratic failed state and gas station for the world.
Must be a nasty blow to Soros ... people acting like Soros but with the Russians instead of the Ukrainian Nazis.
Every country has a few Quislings. I don’t think you really want to base policy and borders on that. We’d lose California and much of the west for starters.
You’ve got backwards. The Soros supporting EU is busy funding Russia’s war machine. Hundreds of millions of dollars every single day. Ukraine is stuck between a rock and hard place. Germany in the east and Nazi Russia in the west. Molotov-Ribbentrop 2.0.
You may find this interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTyIxi49kAk
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.